


13 Days of Halloween - I put a spell on you

by BleedingInk



Series: Halloween Challenge [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witches, F/F, mentiones of Dean/Lisa, mentions of Megstiel, witch!Ruby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby is a lonely witch and Anna is a broken-hearted girl who comes to her with a request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	13 Days of Halloween - I put a spell on you

The cards indicated someone important would come to the store that day.

Ruby pressed a finger over her right temple. She always felt a strange kind of pressure over there when she was about to have a premonition, and the cards usually helped her see clearly what it was. But they were being overtly vague today. Someone important? What was that supposed to mean? Was it a friend, a relative? A tax-collector? A robber who would hurt her trying to make a quick buck? She didn’t see or perceive any danger, but the cards could be wrong.

Besides, she thought as she stood up from the table without collecting her deck, even if someone wanted to rob her, they wouldn’t find much to rob.

She was aware how everyone in town commented she was a phony. Older people passed by her store without taking a second look, sometimes they got in to buy scented candles or incense sticks. But they scoffed and they snickered at her shelf of books about occultism, they looked at her weird when she reminded them they could come to the back for a card reading, and some, the most religious ones, looked at her pentagram pendant with open mistrust.

She had heard people received visits from door-to-door missionaries now and then, but it seemed that one of them knocked on her door every single Sunday to remind her it wasn’t too late to renounce to Satan and have her soul saved. When she was younger and more naïve, Ruby had occasionally tried to explain them that her religion had nothing to do with Judeo-Christianity, and therefore she couldn’t be a devil worshipper. She had learnt in time that some people just didn’t care to see the world outside their own narrow perspective, so nowadays she just slammed the door on their faces.

That might contribute to her reputation as a loner and a weirdo, and it might be the reason some children passed by her store and stuck their noses to the window glass to catch a glimpse of the “witch”. Usually one glare was more than enough to scare them away.

Yes, sometimes it got lonely. She missed having a coven, a sense of community with people who thought like her and didn’t believe she was a freak. Olivette, the leader of her previous coven, had died and Rowena had taken over, and she had been so overbearing and authoritarian that several of the members had walked away and scattered around. Ruby had acquired an antique shop with a cute apartment on top that she slowly turned into her refuge. Even if she had to scare away the occasional Mormon with a snake skin nailed to the door.

She leaned on the counter and looked at the empty shop with a sigh. If the cards were right, the “important person” wasn’t planning on dropping by anytime near lunch, so maybe she should just close and go out for lunch. She was fantasizing about a hamburger with extra French fries when the bell above her door twinkled.

A redheaded girl wandered in, looking around with eyes wide open. She looked slightly lost, like she wasn’t sure she was at the right place. She was clutching a bag with her, and she a little pale and disheveled. Ruby had the impression she had slept in her clothes.

“Can I help you?”

The girls startled, and blinked a couple of times to collect herself.

“Yes, sorry, hi,” she stuttered. “I’m looking for a… Ruby? Is that right? I don’t… have a last name.”

“I’m Ruby,” the witch replied.

The girl looked relieved for a second, then walked up to the counter to leave her bag on it.

“I’m Anna Milton,” she introduced herself.

Ruby waited. The name didn’t ring any bells or tell her who she was or why she was there.

“Pamela said you could help me,” the girl continued opening her bag. “She gave me your name and your address.”

“Okay,” Ruby nodded. That made a little more sense. Pamela had been a member of her coven. She was a powerful Seer, and her predictions were far more accurate than Ruby’s. If she had sent Anna her way, there must have been a reason.

In the time it took for her to make that connection, the girl had found whatever she was looking for inside her bag. It was a picture that depicted her and a man in a leather jacket. The man had an arm slung over her shoulder, and they were both smiling happily for the camera.

“This is Dean Winchester,” Anna told Ruby. “He was my boyfriend.”

“Okay,” Ruby repeated. “How did he die?”

Anna stepped backwards, and for a moment, Ruby thought she should explain she hadn’t read her mind or anything like that. It was just that Pamela knew contacting people on the Other Side was one of her specialties, so she’d just assumed…

“No, he’s not dead,” Anna said, frowning. “He just left me.”

“Oh,” Ruby said, completely taken aback. Anna took her surprise as an invitation to continue:

“We were… fine, together,” she said. “But then an old ex-girlfriend of his from college, Lisa, called him. Turned out he had an eight year old kid with her he didn’t know about. And Ben was sick…”

“Ben’s the kid?” Ruby asked, trying to get the story straight.

“Yes,” Anna nodded. “And they needed Dean to make a bone marrow donation. So he did, and in the process he started reconnecting with Lisa, and he fell in love with Ben, so when he recovered, Dean just… he decided to be with his family.”

Ruby nodded, gravely. That must not have been an easy situation for Anna, because she obviously looked upset telling that story. Still…

“So what do you need my help with?” she asked. Anna clenched her mouth, like she wasn’t sure how to start her request. Ruby took a deep breath and stepped backwards. She didn’t have many jilted lovers looking for vengeance cases, but the few she had sometimes would get nasty if she denied their requests. “Look, I get you’re aching, but I don’t think you should try to curse him. He sounds like a decent person…”

“What? No!” Anna replied, scandalized. “I don’t want to curse him. He’s the best guy ever!”

“So you want him back?” Ruby guessed. “I mean, I could do that, but that’d be breaking up a family and it’s bad energy…”

“No, Jesus, no,” Anna shook her head. “I don’t want him… I want him to be happy, and he’s happy with Ben and Lisa.”

She said it pronouncing the worlds too fast, like she had repeated them out loud several times, like a mantra. Ruby waited again until Anna collected her thoughts, but when it was obvious she would just stand in the middle of her store without speaking, she asked:

“So what _do_ you want?”

Anna lifted her eyes at her. They were glistening with unshed tears, and Ruby found herself marveling at their strange color, somewhere between green and brown.

“I want to forget him,” Anna replied. “I want to stop loving him and… find someone new. I want to move on.”

Ruby opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was trying to find the words to tell her that was just impossible to do, that the only way she could heal was to wait and focus her attention on something else. But Anna’s expression was so devastated she couldn’t bring herself to.

“Please, I’ve tried everything else,” Anna insisted. “Nights out with the girls and rebound guys… I’ve lost count of how many books about failed relationships I’ve read and how many sad blog entries I’ve written. I just…”

“How long ago was this?” Ruby asked.

“Like… three years ago,” Anna sighed.

Ruby got the impression that the ‘like’ was unnecessary and Anna knew exactly how long she had been dealing with her broken heart. She stepped back and moved the beads curtain that separated the shop from her personal study.

“Turn around the close sign, and come on in,” she instructed Anna.

In the time it took Anna to obey, Ruby collected her cards and started shuffling them.

“Sit down,” she indicated when Anna passed through the beads.

“You’re not going to light a candle or…?” Anna asked. Ruby crooked an eyebrow. “It’s… what Pamela does.”

“I do things a little differently than Pamela,” Ruby said, pointing at the chair.

She wasn’t going to tell her that Pamela’s gift was so strong she rarely needed ambient to concentrate, so whatever she did to impress others was probably unnecessary, as it was what Ruby was about to do. She was about to give her a sort of emotional placebo.

“Cut the deck,” she instructed her. Anna hurriedly did so, and Ruby started turning the cards over the table. “Let’s see… it says here your parents are alive and well, you have… geez, five, six brothers?” Ruby said, squinting just to make sure she was reading that right.

“Seven, actually,” Anna shrugged.

“Okay… and I see there’s another birth in the family coming soon,” Ruby continued.

“That’s not possible,” Anna interrupted her. “My father had a vasectomy.”

Ruby shrugged. Sometimes the cards weren’t thoroughly accurate. She turned the second row.

“You currently don’t have any major money issues,” Ruby continued. “You’re an academically successful person, and you live off your words. Are you a writer?”

“Journalist,” Anna replied. She seemed a little surprised. “And I… graduated suma cum lauden.”

“Of course you did,” Ruby smiled, turning over the third row. “You’re in good health, physically, but sometimes you let melancholy get to you. Well, you’ve already told me the cause of that,” Ruby added, perhaps to point out to Anna that wasn’t really a prediction. But Anna was listening to her with eyes wide open and undivided attention. Ruby turned around the last row. “And finally, your love life. It says here… huh.”

She stared at the cards for a moment, unsure. That was not… how was that even possible?

“What?” Anna urged her. “What does it say?”

Ruby snapped back from her thoughts, and tried to sound as natural as possible.

“It says here that there are two great loves in your life,” she said. “One of them belongs to the past and ended in failure. The other one is coming at you, very soon, in an unexpected way, and you’ll be the happiest you’ve ever been. You just need to be ready to receive it when it does.”

Anna leaned back on the chair. She didn’t say she didn’t believe her, but Ruby saw the shadow of skepticism in her eyes.

“Everything’s going to be okay for you,” Ruby assured her anyway. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Anna nodded, but she was clearly disappointed. Ruby had the feeling she had heard that line a thousand times from well-meaning loved ones, about how she didn’t have to worry about it and how she’d find someone new. Maybe that was why it was hard to believe it.

“Thank you,” she said, as Ruby walked her back outside to the store. “Uh… should I… pay you or…?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, we’re not supposed to receive money for these things,” Ruby replied. “But if you’d like to buy a pendant…”

Anna bought a small one with a rose quartz in the shape of a heart and left.

Ruby tapped her fingers over the counter. She was still hungry, but she didn’t feel like going out anymore. So she locked the door and went up to her apartment to heat up some ramen. While the spun in the microwave, she made a call.

“Pamela Barnes, psychic extraordinaire… oh, hi, Ruby.”

Ruby hadn’t said a word, but it didn’t surprise her Pamela knew exactly who it was on the other side of the line.

“Pam, what the hell did you send me that girl for?” Ruby cut to the chase.

“Oh, so you’ve met Anna,” Pamela replied. Her voice sounded excessively cheerful. “So what did you think? She’s pretty, right?”

“She’s… wait, what?” Ruby asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You tell me,” Pamela said, and Ruby could just picture her shrugging. “What did the cards say?”

“The cards say a bunch of bullshit sometimes, and you know it damn well,” Ruby replied, completely decided to sink her heels as deep as she could in her denial. “This isn’t an exact science.”

“Sure, but what _did_ they say?”

Ruby huffed in frustration.

“They said Anna is at a crossroads and one of the possible paths leads to…” Ruby had to bite the word before spitting it out: “To me. They said she’s supposed to meet me. But that doesn’t make any sense…”

“Doesn’t it? You’re lonely and she’s broken-hearted. Sounds like a perfect match to me.”

Ruby pulled the phone away from her ear like that way her glare could travel across the line and burn Pamela.

“What did you do?” she groaned.

“I did nothing,” Pamela replied, sounding far too innocent for Ruby to believe her. “You know the universe has a way of going about these things that we can’t always control. I’m merely… a facilitator.”

“Pamela, I swear…”

“Anna had to make a report about your town’s surrounding campgrounds anyway,” Pamela replied. “So maybe I told her to go a couple of days before she was planning to and pay you a visit. Maybe if I haven’t, her car would have broken in front of your store or you might have met at a coffee shop or something. I just sped things up a little.”

“You’re so proud of yourself for trying to hook me up by using the universe as an excuse, aren’t you?” Ruby groaned. Pamela didn’t answer, but Ruby swore she could feel her grin at the other end of the line. “Well, you’re wrong. Wrong like you’ve never been before. She’s going to write her report, and she’s going to leave town afterwards. I am never going to see that girl again.”

“Alright,” Pamela said, calmly. “Can I be the bridesmaid when you two get married?”

Ruby hung up on her and picked up her ramen from the microwave. She ate them internally cursing Pamela and watching the heavy, dark clouds gathering up in the town’s horizon.

 

* * *

 

Anna laid down on her motel’s bed with a tired sigh. She had drove for hours a day before she had to, for this? Ruby hadn’t told her anything she didn’t know, and the advice she had offered was nothing she hadn’t heard a thousand times before.

At least the pendant was pretty.

She was thinking about going to bed and trying to catch some sleep when her cellphone rang.

“Hey, how was the trip?” her brother Castiel asked.

Anna didn’t want to tell him that she had stopped on the way to the place she was actually going to have her fortune told. So she just said: “Fine.”

“I’m glad you made it okay,” Castiel added. “I just saw in the forecast there’s a big storm coming your way.”

Anna sat up and looked outside her window. The sky was indeed darkening fast, and Anna grimaced. That meant she wouldn’t be able to reach the campgrounds in that weather if it was raining the following day.

“If it’s too bad I’m going to have to stay a couple of days more,” Anna complained.

“That’s too bad,” Castiel said, disappointed. “We were hoping you’d be here for the official announcement…”

He shut up fast, in a move Anna instantly recognized as him saying something he wasn’t supposed to say.

“What announcement?”

Castiel stayed quiet for a few seconds more and when he spoke again, his voice was filled to the brim with excitement.

“Okay, don’t tell anyone yet and act surprise at the dinner when we tell everybody,” he warned her. “You… are going to be an aunt.”

Anna’s first thought was: _“Woah, who did Gabriel knock up?”_ but then she realized…

“What? Meg is pregnant?”

“Yes!” Castiel said, ecstatic. “She’s eight weeks. Anna, we’re so…”

“Oh, my God,” Anna covered her mouth. “That’s amazing, Cas! Oh, God, mom’s going to flip.”

They talked a while longer about how happy they were, but something tugged at the back of Anna’s head. Ruby, her dark eyes concentrated over the cards, her long black hair slipping over her shoulder. A birth in the family. This would be their first nephew, her parents’ first grandchild. That was the one thing of everything that Ruby had said that she couldn’t have known, not even if Pamela had called hear ahead.

So was there any truth to her words? Was there any…?

Anna paced around the room, slightly freaked out. In the end, she grabbed the pendant and hang it around her neck. For some reason, its cold contact against her skin calmed her down.

 

* * *

 

The storm raged on all night, and by the following day, it had become just a very annoying drizzle. Ruby grabbed her umbrella and made her way to the restaurant next street. She wanted her goddamn cheeseburger, dammit.

“And extra French fries,” she ordered. “And extra ketchup, too.”

She was hungry, and apparently the boy taking her order realized she would eat him if she didn’t get her food fast enough. Ruby stood by the side of the counter, tapping her finger and ignoring the grumbling of her stomach when she felt two strange spots in the back of her head, like darts drilling in her skull. She turned around, half expecting it to be the local pastor or someone from his congregation who always gave her the stink eye, but she spotted Anna instead.

She was sitting on table on the corner, her laptop open in front of her and a half-eaten burger by her side. She didn’t look away when her eyes met Ruby’s. In fact, she raised her hand and gave a little wave.

Ruby waved back, unsure. What was she supposed to do know? Get her food and quietly sit somewhere far away from that table? Give in to Pamela’s metaphysical matchmaking skills? If they were supposed to find each other, if this was their crossroads, couldn’t it be that they would meet again even if she walked away now?

“Your order, miss,” said the boy, pushing the plastic trail towards her.

Ruby snapped back to reality and clumsily picked up her order. She looked in Anna’s direction one more time, and was surprised to see her nodding at her head and pointing at the empty chair in front of her.

Ruby hesitated one more time.

And the she decided to stop fighting the universe.

She stalked towards Anna and put her trail on the table at the same time she closed her laptop to look at her with those unsettling green eyes.

“Hello, Anna,” Ruby smiled.

“Hey,” she replied. She toyed with something around her neck, and Ruby realized it was the pendant she had brought from her yesterday. “So freaky storm, huh? Did you predict that?”

“Actually, no, there’s a group of nerds with strange wind measuring instruments who do that so I don’t have to,” Ruby said, crooking an eyebrow.

Anna cringed and hid her face on her hands.

“That was lame, wasn’t it?”

“Super lame,” Ruby chuckled. “So, you’re stuck here until it stops raining? Pamela mentioned you were supposed to write about the campgrounds.”

“I never told that to Pamela.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Ruby rolled her eyes.

Anna laughed a little and put a strand of hair behind her ear. And for some reason, Ruby caught herself thinking that was mighty adorable.

Oh, Goddess, she was so fucked.

“Well the guys with the measuring instruments said it’s supposed to stop tomorrow morning,” Anna said. “So I could go then and… hey, do you think you can come with me?” she asked, and Ruby leaned back on her chair. “It’s just… since you live here I figured you knew the best places. Maybe you can even help me talk to some of the owners.”

“Uh, sure,” Ruby said. “I know a couple.”

“Awesome,” Anna smiled, and for the first time, Ruby saw her eyes lighting up too. “So I’ll pick you up… at eight. Is that okay for you?”

“Okay,” Ruby replied, still taken aback by just how easily Anna had taken charge of it all.

“Great,” Anna said. “Oh, do you want my fries? I don’t usually eat them.”

Ruby had never in her life been more thankful, but she decided she wasn’t going to tell Pamela that.


End file.
